experimenting

It’s interesting to read your comments on yesterday’s post. Who knew that the “to wash or not to wash” question would prove to be so burning?

If you had asked me a few years back, I would have stared at you in disbelief if you had suggested that I shouldn’t wash my hair every day. I washed it every day, sometimes several times a day.
Something in me said that it wasn’t good to do that though, so I started to wash every second day instead. That may not sound like a big change, but I can tell you that if my hair hadn’t been long enough to wear in a ponytail, I couldn’t have done it. I wore it loose on washing day, and the “dirty” day I wore it up.

It took quite a long time for the hair (scalp) to adjust to this new routine, but after a while it felt perfectly normal, and I even went out on a limb at times by going three days without shampooing – but on the third day it felt really yucky and I had to wear it braided.

Interesting stuff, huh!

My point is this: Right now it’s Sunday evening. The last time I shampooed my hair was Wednesday night or possibly Thursday morning, I forgot which. Either way, it’s been four days and my hair still feels good and is not in bad need of shampoo. Yesterday I “washed” my hair with warm water and System 4 Therapeutic Oil Cure which is a “long lasting watersoluble oil cure that removes dead cells from scalp and repairs damaged hair” – I bought it because of my itching scalp, and also because it’s the only thing that immediately stops my hand from itching if I use it as a hand lotion; it’s antibacterial and antifungus and antialotofthings.

The interesting part of all this is that after that “wash”, which really wasn’t a proper wash because I actually added oils to my hair rather than washing them off with shampoo, my hair felt really clean. More importantly, it looked clean. Still does.

I’m not saying that I’m giving up shampoo – heck, I bought a new bottle at work this Wednesday! – but I will definitely try to go as far as possible between shampooing. Letting my hair be its natural wavy self helps a lot, even if I have to work on my confidence and self image to wear it like that and still feel good. I don’t need to use as many – if any! – products when my hair is wavy as when I straighten it.

I’m taking it one day at a time. If I can go five days this time, perhaps next time I can go six and so on. I will not compromise with the look and smell of my hair, that’s just not possible as I have to have fresh hair at work.

The thing is that most of the “daily dirt” is water soluble – sweat is, for example. Most hair sprays and mousses are. Dust is washed out by rinsing and massaging. Of course it depends on what job you have, but it’s not like my job is a very dirty one.

For me, ‘not to shampoo’ does not equal ‘not to wash’. I will still wash my hair with water and conditioner, I will rub that scalp until it feels clean, but I will try not to shampoo unless it’s absolutely necessary.

I’m keeping a record of what I do to my hair, and will let you know what happens.